Google acquires third-party email app developer Sparrow

By Gene Ryan Briones on 07/20/2012 10:40 PST

The developers behind the Sparrow app for Mac and the iPhone are announcing that their 5-person company has just been acquired by Google. Sparrow CEO Dom Leca confirmed the acquisition over the company’s blog. Leca said that its team will be joining Google’s Gmail team to “accomplish a bigger vision” that the company believes will be achieved better with Google on its back. Sparrow supports IMAP and POP and it works with other popular email services including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL. Sparrow features threaded coversations, Facebook integration, a unified inbox, Dropbox integration and more.

Over at the App Store, Sparrow also confirmed the deal, adding that no features will be released – except for minor bug fixes – as the team will be working on new projects at Google. “We’d like to extend a special thanks to all of our users who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback and allowed us to build a better mail application. While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users,” Leca said.